Facebook's crusade against pseudonyms and nicknames has just won out. After a German court ruled Facebook couldn't force people to use their real, full names, a successful appeal from Facebook in another German court rules it can. The result? You're stuck using your real name on Facebook.

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The court ruled that, as Facebook's EU headquarters and data processing centres are in Ireland, only Irish law applies. In effect, the German court has contradicted itself saying German law doesn't apply here. The irony is that all the data processing is seemingly done in the US anyway, and not in the EU, although whether that's really true or not it's difficult to tell from the outside.

I can't say I see this as a massive deal, and unless you're trying to masquerade as someone else, then it probably doesn't affect you. Still, for all those carrying off parody accounts and other things like that, your time might be coming to a close if Facebook really starts enforcing all this. [ITWorld]